


After The Rain

by Technicolour (Lirriel)



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Aphrodisiacs, Background Myungjin - Freeform, Blow Jobs, Dragon Fucking, Human/Monster Romance, M/M, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28305822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/pseuds/Technicolour
Summary: Dongmin travels to the town his mother once called home searching for answers. What he finds turns his entire world upside-down.
Relationships: Lee Dongmin | Cha Eunwoo/Moon Bin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67





	1. Cloudburst

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlitdrive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitdrive/gifts).



> MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS YOU HEATHENS. I was too much of a coward to write full-blown dragon fucking, but this should still suffice :^) (Also enjoy two chapters of build-up b/c I don't understand how to write only smut.)

“Have you heard this story?” Jinwoo asks him.

They’re almost an hour into their car ride, and Dongmin has seen approximately three blocks of what might be kindly termed a town. He’s seen a cinema, a gas station, an empty square that doubles as a Sunday marketplace and festival space. And he’s spotted a few run-down apartments, little squat buildings that proudly proclaim vacancy at rates that are appropriately poor but also appropriately shitty—he can bet there’s an outhouse hidden from view, where everyone stuck in a bad corner room congregates when their toilets fail.

(He’s stayed in a few of those during his life. He’s also been armed with a plunger and been stuck desperately fighting a gurgling toilet at two in the morning after an unsupervised four-year-old dropped his toy truck down it right before his dad tottered in stinking of alcohol and took the biggest shit of his life. It’s not an experience he’ll ever forget, no matter how much he wishes he could scrape the image from his corneas.)

Dongmin flicks his eyes from the fields they’re currently rumbling through (Jinwoo’s pickup truck filled with tools that rattle and bounce with every hole they hit) to catch his driver’s eye smile. Jinwoo is a conscientious driver, gaze still planted firmly on the road, and Dongmin makes an inquiring sound to indicate interest.

(It’s a rhetorical question, obviously. How can Dongmin know a story from a village he just rolled into ten minutes ago? They don’t even have a train station, and the bus runs through it every Tuesdays, no more, no less.)

“Long ago,” Jinwoo says, voice deepening into the timbre of a storyteller, “there was a great drought that swept the land.”

It is difficult for Dongmin to believe, when he runs his eyes over the unending acreage of every vegetable imaginable. There are even some he cannot specifically identify, and he wonders if they’re ornamental: destined for nurseries and dining room tables or set away in the corner of a study to provide a pop of color.

But there are mountains in the distance, drawn closer and closer ever since he first stepped off the train nearly an hour before. And with them almost upon the foot of the smallest ones, Dongmin can see how rain clouds might stall out before reaching this valley. His eyes skirt over tree-lined tops and bare-faced cliffs, and he wonders if there’s an untapped business for hikers and mountain climbers.

Jinwoo continues on, “The water just beneath the surface of the earth dried up first. Without nourishment, so went the grasses. Without foliage, so went the livestock. Without livestock, so began to go the people. They prayed to the mountain god, begging him to intervene. But he was as powerless as they, for his riches were buried beneath rock, between boulders, and upon ground they no longer had the strength to tread.

“So he turned his voice to the sky and beseeched those above for assistance. Shortly thereafter, a great quake rocked through the village one night, and when they left their houses the next morning, they found a small river had begun to flow through the crack left behind by the earth’s shifting. From this river climbed a serpent who proclaimed itself god of the waters and demanded a human sacrifice.”

Jinwoo pauses here, and when they coast to a stop at a three-way junction, he asks, “Do you know why the water god would demand a human life?”

It’s an interesting question, to be sure. But they both know that Dongmin can answer it, and he does so promptly. “The gods draw power from their own domains. So giving the mountain god jewels and gold and even meals made from mountain vegetables is sufficient. But humans are almost entirely made of water, so water gods tend to be more bloodthirsty in their demands.”

Jinwoo chuckles and the truck rumbles on. “Exactly. Though I wouldn’t necessarily call them ‘bloodthirsty’. They’re just seeking that which most empowers them.

“But, in any case, the supposed water god demanded a human sacrifice. There was great deliberation amongst the people, for while the god no doubt provided them the water they so desperately sought, they were a small settlement and each life was precious. However, it was eventually decided that a member of the Cha family would act as the human sacrifice, and, after much squabbling between themselves, a young man was chosen to represent them.

“With his request fulfilled, the water god dove into the river and began to enlarge it, and it was said that as the river grew greater and greater, one could see the scales of his hide flashing like fish in the reflection of the water. And so great did his river grow, that the village expanded downstream, following it all the way to its tail while its head resided deep in the mountains. And thus did the Cha family sacrifice one of their own every fifty years, with the knowledge that their generosity kept the river bountiful and the harvest grand, and theirs were the greatest crops produced upon the land for many, many years.”

Dongmin allows himself to smile, though it is a wasted effort when Jinwoo keeps his eyes firmly ahead. “That is a beautiful tale. Would you allow me to add it to the anthology I’m writing?”

Jinwoo laughs. For the first time, he turns his eyes upon Dongmin while the vehicle is in motion. It is a short glance, a swift appraisal that skirts over Dongmin’s skin before his eyes are once more upon the road before them. “I’d hope you would,” he answers. “A few more minutes and then we’ll have arrived at your home away from home.”

Dongmin can see how the land is starting to rise now, bulging up into hills that grow thick with forest. Nature still holds claim upon this part of the valley, and the only sign of civilization is the small, winding road they follow (one lane, but Dongmin suspects that’s entirely by design).

What were once fields are now swells of earth, wildflowers and dark grasses that must reach at least calf-high, untended and unfettered, that rush into dense woodland. Near the road they travel upon, the foliage is light and patches of sun-spread blanket the floor. But he can see further within, where even the sunlight itself weakens, and he wonders what sort of monsters lurk within.

(A god?)

“The river’s retracted since then,” Jinwoo says. “But the village stayed down below, because the people were tired of combatting mudslides and rockfall. Even though the river no longer reaches as far, it still nourishes most of the crops in this area. And, of course, we get plenty of rain now.”

“I can see that,” Dongmin answers, a smile spooling through his voice. “It’s a beautiful place.”

“It’s home,” Jinwoo agrees.

They lapse into a comfortable silence, and Dongmin is content to submerge himself in the calm.

They drive into the lower hills, the elevation slowly rising, and as they crest one swell, Dongmin finally spots what will be his new home in the coming month. (Months, perhaps, if he finds what he is seeking here.)

It is a traditional home, surrounded by tumbling green land and cut off from the nearby forest by a river that rests at the foot of the mound the house is set upon. The river is crossable by a small, weathered bridge, and Dongmin suspects the river must rise quite high in times of turbulence, for the bridge is raised high and the embankments are cut deep into the earth.

But his eyes skirt over the river and the bridge and the forest to rest solely upon the house, for it is of a scale grander than any of its cousins in the _hanok_ villages he has visited. It is an L-shaped structure, raised a few feet above the ground for the circulation of air, with a peaked roof covered in tiles and a small veranda that encircles the exterior. The doors that lead inside are polished wood, delicate in their carefully-carved designs, and Dongmin spies several wide-cut windows (shuttered, currently, but easily unlatched and their coverings swung open to allow natural light to flood the interior).

“Mostly untouched,” Jinwoo tells him as the car rolls up the pebbled driveway that leads to the front of the house. “We added plumbing and electricity, and there’s a generator stashed in a shed out back in case the power cuts out. There’s a landline inside but it only connects to my house – just in case you need something fast.”

They come to a stop at the top of the drive, and Jinwoo climbs out. Dongmin is slower to exit the vehicle: he is too busy following the gentle slopes of the house, the soft flush of the white-washed walls. He swears he almost sees the building breathe as he finally steps out of the truck. He circles to the back of the vehicle and finds Jinwoo already hauling out his suitcases.

“Sure you didn’t want to rent a car?” Jinwoo asks as he sets down one piece of luggage before reaching for the second.

“I’m fine with the bike,” Dongmin answers. “I need the exercise.”

He laughs, and Jinwoo laughs with him, though Jinwoo’s voice is edged in disbelief.

“You’ll get plenty going up and down those hills,” Jinwoo says as he sets down the second piece of luggage and turns both suitcases over to Dongmin. “Just give me a call if you ever want a lift, though. I don’t mind picking up groceries for you either, if you need them. Couldn’t imagine you lugging them up all that.”

“Thank you,” Dongmin says. He’s taken possession of his things and is trying not to feel overwhelmed. He’s finally here. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

“No, I think that’s—wait, no, here.” Jinwoo abruptly digs down into the pocket of his jeans, tongue pushed out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. Dongmin can’t find the expression too amusing, if only because he desperately understands what it feels like to fill out some slacks. There’s just no room left for things like keys and phones and wallets after he’s managed to squeeze his ass into a pair of jeans.

Jinwoo finally extracts a key from his pocket and offers it to Dongmin with a wry grin. “To the shed,” he says in clarification. “Bike’s in there, so is the jenny. Also some general tools. I come by and cut the grass myself a couple of times a month, but if you want to pick up gardening or whatever, everything you need should be in there. And I think you’re set.”

“Thanks,” Dongmin says again. “I’ll definitely call you if I have any problems, but it seems like you covered everything.”

“I like to be prepared,” Jinwoo says with a laugh. “Here, I’ll help you get this inside, then I’ve gotta be off. I’m expected home soon.”

Jinwoo accompanies Dongmin to the entryway but doesn’t actually step inside. Instead, he’s content to help haul the luggage across the threshold before stepping back, down off the veranda, his mouth gone slanted and his eyes turned upward as he peers at the sky.

“Take care,” he says. “Looks like we might get a storm tonight.”

Dongmin peeks out from beneath the house’s awning to behold clear blue skies with not even a hint of cloud cover. “I’ll keep an eye out,” he says, not wanting to contradict this person who has helped him so much.

“Do that,” Jinwoo says with a smile. And then he is gone, and Dongmin stands in the doorway, watching Jinwoo’s little red pickup rumble down the road until it turns a bend and is hidden by trees. It is only then that he withdraws inside his new home, pulling the doors shut behind him.

Dongmin casts his gaze inward, stood in an entryway with a shoe rack and a bench and a strip of coat hangers. The sliding doors that section off each room of the house have all been left open and through the open thresholds he takes in the slices of a new kitchen, a living space, what could be his bedroom with folded mattress already placed and piled high with fresh bedding. Something that is at once painfully familiar and coldly strange stirs in his heart, and Dongmin finds himself swallowing.

He wonders if his mother ever lived in a house like this.

There is something like reverence that grips his hands and leads him through the slow, unsteady process of unpacking. He sets up his laptop in what would have been the men’s study, draws out each article of clothing and unfolds and folds them again to protect against creases and wrinkles before depositing them into the appropriate drawers. He takes stock of the pantry and discovers pickled vegetables and canned meats. (A peek in a small closet that occupies a corner of the kitchen reveals something like a meat locker, with what looks to be smoked ham hanging.)

He discovers the soap in the bathroom is obviously handmade, bark-like and roughly-marbled – and what serves as shampoo and conditioner are small, travel-sized bottles, obviously bought cheap from the nearest convenience store.

It is with a quirk of his lips that Dongmin settles down at his laptop later with a cold glass of water and a spam sandwich, having been intimidated by all the raw ingredients at his disposal. He wets his lips as he shoots off a quick email to his editor, letting her know he’s arrived safely and will contact her again when the first draft is completed.

Then he exits his browser and just sits there, head cradled in the palm of one hand, index finger tapping at his temple. He knows he needs to be writing notes, arranging a layout, figuring out what sort of tapestry he’ll weave out of the many stories he’s collected in the last six months he’s traveled up and down the peninsula.

But he is _here_ , and that knowledge settles like rigor mortis. He knows he isn’t a dead man walking – but he is seeking a dead woman, so obviously ghosts of some fashion are involved.

He knows it’s bad for him.

But he still dutifully withdraws the lighter from his pocket, taps out a cigarette from its carton, and lights up. He wedges the stick between his index and middle, draws in a breath that curls nicotine down his throat, and pushes it out with a sigh that empties all the air from his lungs. His eyes close of their own accord.

He had picked up the vice a few days after his father revealed he was adopted, back when he had just graduated university and was working on his first anthology. He’d already had his first short story published in a magazine and had earned a small cash prize for an article he’d submitted to another.

He hadn’t meant for it to be a long-term thing, just a moment of deviancy in the face of unexpected betrayal – because parents couldn’t _do that_ to their children. They could not drag this unknown actor onto the stage of their son’s life and shout, “Surprise!” and not expect the ground to open up beneath his feet. He had been their boy, their eldest, and he had dutifully accomplished each task set before him, content in the knowledge that he was himself and no one else.

The worst part is that Dongmin cannot bring himself to blame them. He certainly cannot hate them. But he needs to know this other woman, and he needs to know why, nearly thirty years ago, she chose to give him up for adoption. And why she vanished.

It has taken time and effort and money (and years spent writing books, building up a reputation, earning an excuse to wander the nation in the name of research) but he has finally found a name. He has finally found a town.

He takes another drag from his cigarette and clicks open his writing software. He takes a moment to stretch, holding his cigarette between his lips as he works through a few exercises for his wrists and hands. There is a sardonic tilt to his mouth as he positions his fingers over the keyboard.

It’s an odd coincidence that his mother’s family name is Cha – the same name of the family from Jinwoo’s story. But there are many odd coincidences in life, and Dongmin has learned cold practicality to distance himself from the starry-eyed fantasies of his writing.

He continues to tap away at his laptop even as the first drips of rain fall onto the tiled roof.

Dongmin pushes through writer’s block with easy confidence, immersed in the process. He’s taught himself to be like this, months spent forming a habit that relies on the first light of his cigarette, the promise of another stick fueling him through even the most herculean of word counts. It’s all classical conditioning, learned from a few psych classes he picked up as electives, but it’s given him an efficiency that many of his contemporaries lack.

And it’s how he can promise his editor a manuscript in a month, each story packaged and perfected.

Which is why annoyance flares like a lash of flame when the lights snap off, the entire house stripped of power with one single, crackling boom that rattles the windows and sets Dongmin’s teeth grinding together.

He fiddles for his phone in the dark, his cigarette having long since guttered out into a pathetic stub that’s sitting on his empty plate. He pushes on the flashlight and raises his phone up to consider his surroundings. Above him, the rain is pounding hard on the roof, practically hammering it. Outside the window, another warning sound rumbles through the air.

He stands and groans, his knees creaking at him, the bone spur in his ankle reinforcing its presence with sudden tenderness. His foot bumps against the table’s leg, and he hisses out a sharp, “Fuck!”

With his big toe throbbing miserably at him, Dongmin hobbles out of the study and toward the front doors, only pausing to drag on a rain jacket and search for the key to the shed. He scans the shoes he set out earlier, each pair shining brightly beneath the beam of his flashlight. None of them are designed for heavy rain, so he finally settles on a pair of sneakers. (They’re still pretty new, purchased for an attempt at daily exercise that tailed off when a deadline got pushed forward.)

He’s pretty sure they aren’t waterproof.

Getting the front door open is harder than he expected. It braces against him, as if trying to keep him safe from what lies outside – and when he does finally break the seal, there is a sudden rush of wind and rain, driving over his face and uncovered hands with all the ferocity of a roaring wave.

Dongmin inhales sharply, clutching his rain jacket tighter to himself as he steps out into what could politely be called the makings of a flash flood. He grips his phone vice-like in one hand, its flashlight a watery, weak resistance against the darkness that surrounds his house. Between the terrible conditions and the isolation of his present location, Dongmin can see only a few steps ahead of him before the light is swallowed up by the rampaging storm.

Lightning screams in the distance, and Dongmin’s head jerks up in time to watch it arc through the sky far away, highlighting the mountains in striking clarity and leaving behind an imprint of their silhouettes as it falls away. Thunder rolls through his chest, reminding him of just how small and defenseless he is outside his house.

He finally pushes himself into action and starts around the house, keeping near its wall, trusting in the light-colored paneling to guide him to where he needs to go. His effort is slow-going, his shoes struggling for purchase on pebbled ground that’s gone slick with rain.

Dongmin clenches his jaw and squeezes a sound of exasperation from between his lips when he sees the wall fall away. There’s a stone path that leads away from the veranda; he follows it, hesitant in his steps but unsure of how else to find the shed. (His flashlight can only _just_ illuminate the next brick in the path.)

The tiles are slippery beneath his feet, and when Dongmin does finally fall, he considers it an inevitability. What he does not expect is to _keep_ falling. The darkness tumbles around him, the ground diving downward from a gentle slope into a steep incline – and it is only when he hears the splashing of the river, the groans of the bridge, that Dongmin realizes he was never heading toward the shed at all.

He scrambles for purchase, hands scraping uselessly at the dirt, but his descent continues. There is a sudden, sickening lurch of nothing but air beneath him.

And then there is water, overwhelming him with cold and turning his limbs frigid and cumbersome. The rain jacket drags him down deeper and fear overwhelms all sense as Dongmin paddles furiously in the dark, rain lashing his face before a turbulent wave crests over him, drawing him down underwater again.

The stream’s current slams him against something hard and unmoving and Dongmin gasps out precious oxygen into the unrelenting water.

His eyes burn.

Absolute, icy terror grips him, along with the chilling realization that he may very well die – and it is a sudden sense of isolation that overcomes him, drawing his breaths even more ragged, his limbs even more frenetic in their floundering – because he will die here, alone, away from friends and family. And a man in a red pickup truck will find him floating belly-up like a fish at the end of this _stupid fucking river_.

He sobs out a plea for help when his lips once more break the surface – and then he is dragged under again, his eyes squeezed shut tight and all sense of direction lost beneath the thrashing river.

Something brushes against his foot just as he accepts his fate. It pushes against him with all the inquisitiveness of a shark, and were Dongmin not nearly-unconscious a fresh spike of fear might pierce him. As he is, air-starved and waterlogged, he can only weakly accept when it comes again and gently grips his wrist. He is pulled upward, buoyed both by the thing that holds him and the water beneath him, rising like a swell – and then there is a push, and he is dumped on the riverbank, flat on his back and breathing hard around teeth that chatter.

Tremors roll through him even as he abruptly rolls over, bracing against the dirt with his forearms as he spits up water and saliva, choking and coughing, with his hair plastered to his skull and his lungs practically screaming. He hunches up, miserable, and the trembling of his body gradually worsens.

He is only aware that the rain has ceased its cruel assault when something above him whispers in a voice of silk, “Don’t fall asleep. Please, don’t fall asleep.” There is the soft shushing sound of something smooth rubbed against itself, the quiet presence of something many times greater than him – and it is only when Dongmin looks up, bleary-eyed and aching, that he recognizes his savior.

He thinks it a serpent at first—long and sinuous and coiled upon itself—but when it lowers its head to regard him in turn, he sees the tumble of white mane, the finely-arched stag horns that glow pearlescent blue, and the beard that sways gently in the tumultuous wind. He almost sobs, because he must be dead, to have a dragon stood over him, protecting him from the storm that still rages around them.

The dragon brings its head closer, eyes narrowed in recognition. It regards him gently, which is a strange way to describe so reptilian a face, but that is what Dongmin thinks as he stares back. He is still shivering, still aching, but he is also overwhelmed by what stands above him.

“I’ve waited so long to meet you,” the dragon murmurs. Its face is near to touching his own. When it breathes out, he smells the soft scent of jasmine. It presses its snout to his brow and something warm rushes through Dongmin.

Suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to sleep, Dongmin has to fight to keep his eyes open as the dragon’s image spools away in silver light, unwinding from its greater form and wrapping back up into something much smaller, of a comparable size to him.

The dragon becomes a young man, eyes still narrowed in good cheer, a small smile set upon his face.

He catches Dongmin before he falls face-first into the mud, his hands warm. “Let’s get you inside,” the young man says.

Afterwards, Dongmin slides in and out of consciousness, as if trapped in a dream that is slow to break. It clings to him like gossamer.

He watches, dazed, as the young man stands in the entryway of his house and runs his hand across the light switch. Something sizzles in his palm, and the entire building suddenly lights up like a Christmas tree, the bulbs practically strobing for a few moments before they dim back to their normal vibrancy. The young man smiles at Dongmin – and then he must sleep, for when next he comes to, he is in his bedroom, laid out upon the bed with his jacket and shoes removed and his clothes warm and dry.

Dongmin squints against the harsh light and raises his hand to rub at his face. For only a moment he thinks that he has dreamed everything—that he has drunk too much and wound up in bed—but as he shifts to roll off the mattress and head toward the light switch, he catches sight of a figure, sat on the floor with legs crossed, cheek propped up by a closed fist, eyes like flint and fire.

But when the man (he is a different man, not the dragon-person; that one was stream and silt, this one is brimstone and smoke) sees that he is awake, the sharp gaze softens, banked into something kinder. He smiles with the whole of his face, voice bright as he says, “Finally!”

“Who?” is all Dongmin can get out, dumbfounded and overwhelmed in equal parts. He starts to think that perhaps what he experienced was not a dream—and that dries out his mouth, makes something in him choke up, because he saw a _dragon_.

“Myungjun,” the man supplies, clearly unconcerned with Dongmin’s rising panic. “You should get back in bed, Bin’s bringing you soup soon.” He squints at Dongmin until he is forced to retreat back beneath the blankets and then smiles widely. “You almost died, you know,” he says conversationally. “Bad idea, going out in a storm like that. You made Bin feel bad.”

Dongmin says, “I’m sorry,” but only because he can think of nothing else. He has a thousand questions sat heavy and expectant upon his tongue but none form into words he might speak. 

“No harm done, in the end,” Myungjun tells him. “I’m Jinwoo’s husband, by the way.” His nose wrinkles, a boyish smirk upon his face, and Dongmin almost swears he can see the imprint of whiskers upon Myungjun’s cheeks. “Just so you know I’m not a stranger!”

“I figured you just came with the house,” Dongmin says. It’s a poor attempt at a joke, but it’s all he has. Ever since he fell into the river, the entire world has turned upside-down, and he wonders yet again if he really did die, if he really is just a corpse floating in the river. He doesn’t know what kind of afterlife this is, though.

The smirk on Myungjun’s face becomes more firm, something molten dripping in the depths of his eyes. “In another life,” he says—his voice still light, still airy, but now Dongmin wonders if it isn’t really smoke, the presence of fire—“I might take you up on that offer.”

Then he tips his head to the side, raises his shoulders and sighs. The harsh smell of brimstone retreats. “But I’m on my best behavior.” He winks at Dongmin. “Lucky you.”

“I wouldn’t let you,” comes a voice from the door. Dongmin turns, recognition threading through him, and sees his savior. The young man is, well, still a man. He is dressed in traditional hanbok, the _jeogori_ of a blue so dark it seems almost black. He carries an earthenware pot, the nostalgic scent of chicken and ginseng soothing Dongmin’s nerves. And he is watching Myungjun with eyes that reflect liquid gold in the light of the room.

Dongmin blinks and rubs at his eyes, certain he must be imagining the sight.

“Settle your scales,” Myungjun retorts. “You’ve been reading too much modern literature if you think I’d actually do anything.”

“The occupation taught me not to trust a smiling face,” the dragon man returns. He looks to Dongmin then, the dispute apparently settled, and joy softens the hard lines of his face. His eyes look normal once more, and Dongmin wonders if it really was a trick of the light.

Quietly, Myungjun mumbles, “I’m _older_ than you,” but otherwise offers no response.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” the dragon man says. He steps closer, carrying the chicken and ginseng soup with him. He is outright staring at Dongmin, drinking in his face like a man deprived of water for too long, and Dongmin fights against the urge to squirm under such intense scrutiny.

“How long was I out?” Dongmin asks, looking toward Myungjun. Myungjun is watching him too, but there is no weighted expectation in his gaze; his eyes are easier to withstand.

“Two hours at most,” Myungjun replies. “Long enough for the storm to expend itself, though it had already started to die when Bin fished you out of the river.”

There are no more raindrops upon the tile roof, no more ominous growls of thunder. But Dongmin still feels like he is being buffeted. (He is doing his best to ignore the dragon thing.)

“I’m Bin,” the dragon man says. He sets the bowl on the squat table by Dongmin’s bed and hesitates. It is clear he has forgotten something, but he also seems reluctant to leave so soon.

Myungjun snorts and says, “I’ll go get a tray for you.” He pushes himself up from his sitting position and takes a moment to resettle his clothes, smoothing out the creases in his slacks, before trotting out of the room. Dongmin watches him go with some regret, because Myungjun felt like the only thing holding off the intensity that is bubbling just beneath Bin’s skin.

He looks toward Bin, licks his lips, and remembers with an uncomfortable pang the words the dragon had whispered to him: _I’ve waited so long to meet you._

“Who are you?” he asks. He does not want to ask this. He wants to ask, _What happened? Why did I see a dragon? Am I alive? Am I dead? Why was that storm so ferocious when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky before? Is Myungjun human? Are you human?_

But he settles on words that are most familiar, because he has ever been a brutal pragmatist.

And Bin smiles at him. Smiles—like he’s asked the right question, the perfect question. Like he has asked the only question that could ever matter, and when his lips part, Dongmin has the uncanny premonition that he has doomed himself.

“I’m your husband,” the dragon says, gossamer strands of light drifting from his form, threatening to turn his hanbok into scales, his hair into beard, his lips into fangs. “I’ve waited so long to meet you.”

In a single night, Dongmin’s life once more upturns itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those curious, MJ is a gumiho. They seem to be typically depicted as evil in modern-day lit, but ancient texts tend to paint them more kindly. Some seem to think this more evil depiction came about after the Japanese occupation on Korea (if you were curious about that short exchange). Bin is much younger than Myungjun, and so is influenced more by modern-day perception.


	2. Storm Surge

_Have you heard this story? It is an old story, if you are a human. But for Bin, who naps through seasons and sleeps through years, it is so recent as to be a fresh wound, newly-dripping blood and throbbing insistent pain._

_It goes like this:_

Bin meets Sumi when she is only recently come into womanhood, which is an old-fashioned way of saying she has begun to menstruate. When it comes to sacrifices, he has always preferred men to women, but that is only because he knows the world is already unfair enough to the women of his chosen family. And he is only a god of a river, and his reach does not extend beyond their small valley.

(This is after the war, of course. After the many wars. This is when their country is slowly recovering, but he still fears for Sumi, because how can he not after all that he has seen?)

But he meets her, and she is a docile, fragile little thing. Small, for her age, because her family must ration rice. And she greets him quietly, and they say their vows quietly, and he thinks he sees the smallest flash of something, but it gutters and falls before he can look closely.

They do not lie together, because such traditions are crude, mortal things. (He has lain with his sacrifices before, of course, but he, again, prefers men, and she is much too small and much too young to interest him.) Instead, they share ceremonial wine in the house bestowed upon each new sacrifice, passed down through the ages, and she falls asleep curled up in his lap after a single glass.

She grows in leaps and bounds, cared for by both him and the mountain god and the gumiho who has so attached himself to that god. They dote upon her, as ancient uncles might, and she in turn teases them: catching Myungjun by the tail when he trails her in fox form, slipping pepper into Jinwoo’s dishes until his face turns so red as a tomato.

It is not a traditional upbringing—but it is a kind one, and as Bin watches the world turn, he thinks that kindness is sorely needed. And because they are so close, Sumi does not show any hesitancy on the day she graduates from high school.

She looks Bin dead in the eye (and she is taller now, filled out, more adult than child, for all that baby fat yet clings to her cheeks and her chin) and says, “I’m leaving.” And he recognizes in her eyes the same spark he saw on the day he met her and thinks, _Ah, it was rebellion_.

(And he is proud, in a way. For it is the right of all mortals to one day defy the gods they so venerate.)

She does leave, against her family’s protests. There are cries of what a wicked girl she is, of how she will bring ruin upon the family. But all voices fall silent when Bin appears before her in his almighty form, tendrils of power flowing through the air, as tranquil as the river current, and he brings his nose to her forehead in a dragon’s kiss.

“I’ll bring you back a bride,” she tells him softly the night before she sets off. They are sat together again, upon the veranda with their legs swinging in the open air. They share wine, as they did the first time they met, but this time hers is not watered down, and she does not grow drowsy even as the bottle empties between them.

_She has grown_ , he reflects. _And she has grown in ways I was not a part of_.

He laughs at her words, belly filled with good cheer. “I’ve no interest in brides,” he tells her.

She echoes his laugh, and hers is a harsher sound, for her voice has grown deeper than his, warmed through like a log upon an open flame. “He’ll be your bride,” she says confidently.

And when he makes a soft sound of questioning, his head tipped to the side so similar to a dog’s that she again falls to laugher, she says, “My son. When I have him, I’ll bring him back to meet you. You’ll love each other.”

“It’s not something you can force,” he tells her wryly. He has lived too many lifespans to not have intimate knowledge of just how fickle a human heart can be. “After all, I couldn’t force you to stay.”

Perhaps it is a low blow, though he does not mean it to be. She does not seem to mind, only curling her lips in a smile. “But I love you,” she tells him confidently. “So I know he will too.”

“And I love you,” he answers without hesitation. Of his sacrifices, she is the only one who has ever professed her love so freely. And perhaps that is why he does so indulge her in her plan to escape the small world they’ve constructed in their valley.

That is why he is willing to set her free, no matter how his heart sings its aching pain.

“It’s a promise,” she insists, and he wonders if he should take the wine away. She holds out her hand to him, determination turning her stern, and repeats, “He’ll love you.”

He hooks their pinky fingers together and amends the promise to, “He’ll be my bride, yes. I won’t force him to love me.”

She hits his hand. “At least make an effort! Of course he won’t love you if you just _expect_ him to. Cook for him, like you did for me.”

“I’ll cook for you both,” Bin says. He is smiling, just a little. He likes the idea of the house being filled again. The idea of Sumi and himself—and her son, who will be playful like her, who will be stubborn like her.

“Good,” she tells him, and he thinks there is something sad in the smile she offers him. “That’s all I want, Bin.”

_She is sad to leave_ , he thinks. He presses a kiss to her head, as he did when she was little, and squeezes her hand for good luck. _Even though she wants to go, it still hurts._

(Perhaps he is a little cruel, he thinks, because knowing that their parting is just as painful for her makes him feel better.)

The day after she leaves, he goes up the mountain path to visit Jinwoo and Myungjun. He steps through leaves that are turning gold and rust and ruddy red, and thinks that autumn is perhaps the most lovely of all the seasons. But it is also a precursor to winter, and he finds that amusing, considering what he is about to do.

He offers up the keys to the house where Sumi and he lived to Jinwoo, who takes them with a confused expression.

“I’m going to sleep for a bit,” he tells them. “With Sumi so far away, my power will wane; I’d rather conserve it by sleeping.”

“Until the next sacrifice,” Jinwoo says, thinking he has understood.

In truth, Bin cares little for how his power dwindles. The town can support itself now, and there is regular rain even without his interference. But if he sleeps, the months and years will pass faster. And when he awakens, he will see Sumi, and he will see her son.

He beds down in the bottom of his river with this thought at the forefront of his mind.

And he sleeps.

He sleeps unaware of the passage of time, but when next he wakes it has been nearly so long as a decade.

Something sharp jabs at him, something detaches from within him, and he awakens confused and briefly disorientated. His internal clock rights itself after a few moments, and he recognizes just how many years have tumbled by.

In his hibernation, moss has built upon his head and generations of fish have been raised among the reeds that sprout from his back. He rolls his shoulders, dislodging debris and sediment, and casts his senses wide, stretching them far beyond the small valley he calls home.

The pearl of his power, concentrated into something small and precious, quakes beneath his breastbone. He feels like something has gone wrong.

Now he shakes his head in agitation, half-rising—the river swells around him, overflowing the banks, causing a minor flood that sweeps away some of the crops that run near his waters.

He searches further, seeking out some strand of Sumi. He is used to how thinly their connection stretches. But there is an entire absence of her, no line for him to follow and know that she yet stays. He almost roars then, almost rises from the river entirely—but he is calmed by a belated memory.

Jinwoo’s own patrons have traveled far and wide, and Myungjun has said that there lies many lands beyond the sea. If she has gone west or even further east, he will not be able to sense her. His whiskers twinge upon his face, rippling the water, and he resettles himself uneasily upon the river’s floor.

If she has gone away, then he cannot follow her, which means he cannot protect her. But she is a resourceful girl, and she was raised by gods. He soothes himself with these thoughts; the river withdraws from its overflowing banks, leaving many to question the sudden flashflood.

And again he sleeps, praying to whatever deities watch from the heavens that she might return to his side at last.

His wish is granted, after a fashion.

What returns to him is not Sumi—rather, it is her son, promised to him so many long years ago.

When Bin once more awakens, it has been some forty-odd years since last he laid eyes upon Sumi. For a human, such a span would be so distant as to make them strangers again. But Bin is a god, and centuries can pass in the slow, measured blink of his dragon eyes.

He cries for the loss of his daughter, for as he watches the young man accompany Jinwoo to the door of the house Bin once shared with Sumi, he knows that she must be dead.

Dead—and this is all that remains of her: a young man who stinks of cigarettes and city. And Bin hates that he loves him, hates that his heart sings for him, hates that this is Sumi’s son. This is Sumi’s promise.

He buries himself in the riverbed that he might grieve in private, and what power remains unspools from him into the makings of a once-in-a-century storm. His anguish makes the rain lash hard, the thunder growl loudly, and when he wails his pain aloud, the winds scream their answering cries.

He has lost the one he loves most in the world, and she has left behind a child who knows nothing of his own history. Nothing of Bin.

Bin is almost ready to disappear entirely, the pearl clutched in his quivering jaws, salt water stinging his eyes that are awash in tears. But then the young man tumbles into the river, and Bin dives down after him, swallowing back down his power, stretching wider and longer, drawing the river water from the man’s lungs until he is out on the bank and gasping for air.

And alive.

(Unlike Sumi.)

“I’ve waited so long to meet you,” Bin whispers to this beautiful, wretched, wonderful, horrible creature. _My bride._


	3. Moonbow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A moonbow is a rainbow produced by moonlight.

Dongmin spends his first month denying Bin’s existence at every turn. He stays in the house because it is his mother’s childhood home, and there is something sacred in touching the same desk she did, in sitting on the same veranda she did. But he refuses to acknowledge the dragon who so made his mother a sacrifice, and he certainly refuses to accept that he is the next.

“I have a manuscript due next month,” he tells Bin the day after their first meeting, when Myungjun has been picked up by Jinwoo and taken back up the mountain. “I can’t just put that off because you want to—what—eat me?”

The bravado he displays is only skin-deep; he was taught to never show weakness, that predators can taste your fear. But his heart hammers constantly whenever Bin pins Dongmin with his eyes, even when they are as dark as peat and nothing like the gold, glowing orbs that so captivated Dongmin that night he almost died.

He amazes himself, with how obstinate he is. He also shames himself, somewhat, because he knows his parents taught him to be kinder, more respectful—but he is certain they would not judge him in this instance, when his disrespect is directed at a monster that could kill him at any moment.

“No,” Bin answers. His eyes have blown wide. “I just wanted to cook for you, the way I did for your mother.” He is stood in the kitchen, an apron tied around his waist and his bangs pinned back from his face. To Dongmin’s eye, he is some strange approximation of a modern young adult, intermixed with pieces of a past that will never fade. There is nothing dragon-like about him; he looks like someone’s boyfriend.

Dongmin refuses to let his guard down.

Something burns inside him at the mention of his mother’s name, and his voice is tight as he snaps back, “You _cooked_ for her? Was it to make up for choosing her as your sacrifice? Why not an old man, or someone who was actually willing?”

Bin shakes his head. He rolls up his sleeves, mouth downturned. He does not seem angry about Dongmin’s flagrant disrespect – in fact, he seems more saddened than anything. A sigh escapes his mouth, and his hand rises to rub uneasily at his neck. “It doesn’t work like that,” he says. He is not looking at Dongmin; instead, his gaze wanders over the walls. “The Cha family chooses the sacrifice, and I accept them. I don’t eat them; I never have. They just live with me, until it’s time for the next sacrifice to be chosen.”

He offers Dongmin a small, sad smile. “I promise I won’t do anything to interrupt your work, so please allow me to stay.”

Dongmin chews at his lower lip, desperate for a smoke. He had thought Bin would be as all gods are depicted before mortals: wise and powerful and expectant of humans’ undying desire to worship. But Bin seems uninterested in demanding Dongmin’s veneration. He does not seem to even desire respect, for every hard word Dongmin throws at him is met with only a pained smile.

He finds the fire inside him guttering and settles on a ground-out, “That’s fine, just stay out of my way.” He does not want to be the dragon’s friend, but it’s difficult to drive Bin from the home that is by all accounts his own. And Dongmin refuses to leave the house his mother grew up in.

With his reluctant acceptance, the pair settle into an uneasy cohabitation. Bin cooks and cleans while Dongmin works feverishly on his manuscript. With a clear outline, he falls directly into the writing, oftentimes submerging himself for hours at a time.

Bin’s presence is muted, nearly imperceptible, and Dongmin finds himself withdrawing from his work only to find a fresh cup of tea laid out for him. Sometimes Bin pairs the tea with a cookie – something sweet, he explains when Dongmin asks, to help recharge his brain. What meals he makes them are typically a simple affair; Bin is not an expert cook, and the few times he does attempt something more advanced, Dongmin finds himself eating spam while Bin sadly trashes his latest culinary failure.

But, aside from these few occurrences, Bin seems wary of actually interacting with Dongmin. He does not actively avoid Dongmin (and there are several times where Dongmin feels Bin’s eyes upon him, watching with an earnest desire that burns), but neither does he seem eager to re-initiate contact after Dongmin’s original rebuke.

It makes it difficult to stay angry at Bin. Dongmin has ever had a hair-trigger temper, but Bin’s unwillingness to engage makes his anger flag, watered down and struggling to stay alive.

It fully extinguishes the night Dongmin pushes himself too hard and awakens the next morning to find a blanket draped over his back and a pillow carefully tucked beneath his chin. His laptop sits open in front of him, now in sleep mode, and while he waddles all day (stiff from the unnatural sleeping position), he finds himself surprisingly rested for having slept at his work desk.

Dongmin takes his next smoke break on the veranda where Bin sits with his eyes closed and his face uplifted toward the sky. Dongmin leans against a pillar and quirks his mouth in a small smile, because Bin looks too much like a lizard, basking in the sunlight. He waits for Bin to notice him, and when the dragon-man does (with a small jerk, obviously startled by Dongmin’s appearance), Dongmin blows out a long stream of smoke and says, “Thanks for that.”

The smile Bin offers him seems too gentle to come from a god with human sacrifices, and Dongmin finds himself thinking restlessly of over-sweetened coffee. They stay like that until Dongmin’s cigarette burns down to a stub. He heads back inside to resume his writing. 

Dongmin is still uncertain of what a sacrifice _does_. He knows it cannot be something so simple as blind worship, for surely the original village had many men and women willing to bow before their savior. He wonders about it often as he slowly works through the anthology he is putting together. He has placed Bin’s personal story at the end, uncertain if he’ll even include it. There is any number of ways he could adapt it, but he still cannot quite decide if he should cast the dragon as villain or hero.

He ends up inviting Jinwoo and Myungjun over for some old-fashioned barbeque.

He knows for a fact that Myungjun is not human, but when Jinwoo smiles at him from the door of his red pickup, Dongmin can only see him as just another human. He appreciates there is at least one strand of normalcy.

(Of course, that familiarity lasts only until Bin quietly acknowledges Jinwoo as the local mountain god, and Dongmin has to quickly school his expression into one of pleasant surprise.)

Bin takes over the task of grilling the meat with a wide grin. “It’s what I’m best at,” he says.

Jinwoo laughs and shakes his head even as Myungjun raises an eyebrow and answers, “And how many cows’ lives were wasted for you to be able to say that?”

Thinking of how poorly Bin does in all other types of cooking, Dongmin thinks there must have been many nights of tough, tasteless beef until Bin finally bludgeoned his way into some grasp of proper grilling. He’s glad he never had to experience that period.

Myungjun decides that what they _really_ need is a bonfire, and he leads Dongmin and Jinwoo into the woods in search of appropriate tinder while Bin minds the meat. The sun is slowly fading in the distance, but there is enough light that Dongmin only waves farewell when Jinwoo and Myungjun split from him.

He picks up small sticks while in the distance Myungjun’s laughter echoes out. When it tapers off, he decides he should return to the house. He thinks that if he stays too long in the woods, he may stumble upon a moment not meant for his eyes.

Dongmin returns just as Bin is bringing plates outside, the dragon’s mouth curled into a welcoming smile as Dongmin steps into the light cast by the house.

“Is that the start of our bonfire?” Bin asks, pointing with his free hand to the sticks that are bundled under Dongmin’s arm.

“It might not be much of a bonfire,” Dongmin admits. He moves to the place they’ve marked out for the fire and dumps the sticks into a pile. He has only just begun to arrange them when he hears Bin hiss out a curse, and his head whips around to watch a plate _fall_ through Bin’s hand. It hits the dirt with a hard thud.

He blinks, thinking he has seen incorrectly, that the slowly-dying light has cast an illusion of shadows and darkness – but when Bin bends down to pick the plate up, Dongmin can see clearly how his fingers pass through the plate, his skin tinged near-transparent.

“Bin?” he asks.

Bin’s hand curls into a fist. He lifts it up, covers it with his other hand, and says, “I’m fine, Dongmin,” wearing a smile that does not reach his eyes. “Just lost control for a moment, that’s all.”

There is a small, awkward moment, where Bin stares down at the plate and Dongmin stares at him. But then Bin bends down and snatches up the plate, and says, “See? Just a small thing,” in a bright voice. And Dongmin reluctantly nods his head and returns to his sticks.

But the image of Bin’s hand gone ghostly sticks with him, and when Jinwoo and Myungjun return to share in the feast Bin has prepared, Dongmin gently drags Jinwoo to the side. He glances over to see that Myungjun is practically slavering for the meat that Bin has prepared, Bin’s head tilted down as he warns Myungjun away with the very same tongs he had been flipping the meat with.

“Is that normal?” he asks Jinwoo. He has explained what occurred as best he could, and he half-expects Jinwoo to smile off his concern, because gods are entities unlike mortals and thus bound by different rules.

Instead, Jinwoo winces, his mouth crumpled into a grimace and his expression pained. “It can happen,” he says slowly, “when our powers begin to fade.” He tries to smile, but it’s an ugly look. “We are reliant upon the belief of mortals, generally, but Bin’s circumstances are a bit different. He specifically chose to bind himself to a single human—a sacrifice—so that he might achieve yet greater power from a single source. Without a sacrifice, he’s reliant on his own stored power, and when that is expended he will fade away entirely. Normally, this sort of thing would take decades, if not centuries, but that storm on the first day you arrived—well, it did him no favors.”

“So he’ll just… cease to exist, one day?”

Jinwoo shrugs his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable. “Without a sacrifice, he will.”

Dongmin quickly starts to say, “I have a job, a life—.”

Jinwoo cuts him off with a small, sad smile. “Oh, I know. And we can’t force you to become the sacrifice. I just wanted to answer your questions. I don’t believe it’s good to lie.” He looks toward where the other two stand: Bin is feeding Myungjun a piece of beef with the tongs, the other immortal’s head tipped back like a baby bird as he eagerly accepts the meat.

When Bin realizes that Dongmin is also watching, he offers a small smile and a roll of his eyes.

(As if to spite him, Dongmin’s heart pangs in his chest.)

“Well,” Jinwoo says into the sudden silence, “I think it’s about time we ate.” He pats Dongmin on the back, a friendly touch, and heads back to his husband’s side.

Dongmin trails after Jinwoo, head reeling from his sudden realization. It is not Bin’s slow fade that has him so dumbfounded, though. Instead, it is the recognition that he does not want Bin to die, all his anger well and truly extinguished in the time he has spent at the dragon’s side.

When Bin offers him meat, dangling from the tongs, Dongmin accepts the treat without complaint and answers Bin’s shy smile with one of his own.

Dongmin sends off his manuscript three days before the deadline. His editor shoots back a quick email congratulating him on his promptness and encourages him to enjoy the time he has left in the remote village he’s settled in. _Think of it like a mini vacation_ , she writes to him. _You’ve more than earned it!_

Dongmin wonders wryly, having reached the end of her short message, if he can. Bin’s fading has become more and more noticeable, and more than a few plates have shattered on the hard floor. Dongmin no longer startles at each sudden crash – instead, he just sinks further into himself, aware that the frequency has increased and not knowing how to help.

He has started to handle moving the completed dishes from the kitchen to the dining area. He tells Bin to let him take care of anything that’s fragile. But the fact remains that sometimes Bin’s outstretched fingers pass straight through his hand, and he has to suppress a shiver.

He is watching a god die before his very eyes—the same god that demanded his mother as sacrifice—and all he feels in an all-encroaching dread.

Dongmin does not think himself a courageous man. But there comes a day where a teapot passes through Bin’s hands and shatters upon the floor, and Dongmin asks, “What can I do to stop this?” before his brain has even registered what he’s said.

It is clear Bin never expected such a question from his mouth, for the dragon only gapes at him for a moment, eyes blinking in slow-processing surprise. He laughs, like the answer should be plain. “You have to become my sacrifice,” he tells Dongmin.

Dongmin wishes he had a cigarette but settles for tapping his fingers against his leg. “You know I won’t do that,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bin says. He bends down and starts to collect the small pieces of china, careful not to touch the hot water upon the floor. Steam wafts up around his fingers. “The village doesn’t really need me anymore. Even if I fade away, even if the river dries up – they can survive. I believe in them.”

“Why did my mother leave you?” Dongmin asks. He’s cobbled together bits and pieces of his mother’s life – or, at least, the life she lived before separating from Bin. But everything he has learned has come mostly from Jinwoo and Myungjun; Bin never speaks of her.

Bin makes a soft sound of pain, and his blood leaks onto a piece of white porcelain. It crawls down the side as he picks it up and adds it to the pile he’s collecting in his other hand. “Because she wanted to. She said that one day she would come back and bring me a bride.”

“Instead she had a son,” Dongmin muses.

Bin rises back up, all the pieces collected and safely clutched in his hand. He pauses to offer Dongmin a smile. “She knew. Even before she left, she knew she’d have a son.” He cradles the broken shards of the teapot in his hands. “I promised her I would cook for you.”

It is only as he turns away to discard the ruined teapot that Bin’s smile falters. He says, so quietly Dongmin wonders if he only imagined the words, “I loved her.”

Dongmin stares at Bin’s retreating back and wonders how different life would have been if his mother had lived. He wonders if he would have loved Bin.

It is Myungjun who offers a way to halt Bin’s demise.

“It’s only temporary, of course,” he says busily. Bin has gone down the mountain with Jinwoo to buy groceries, and Myungjun has been left at Dongmin’s house.

“Babysitting duty,” Jinwoo had said cheerfully, without explicitly saying who would watch who. With how Myungjun is currently rustling through his food cabinets, Dongmin thinks it’s probably his responsibility to watch Myungjun.

“That’s old,” he tells Myungjun when he pulls out a jar of something. The interior is cloudy, the label reads at least forty years old, and when Myungjun unscrews the lid and sniffs experimentally, he immediately coughs and reseals it. “Told you,” he says mildly, as Myungjun tosses it into the trashcan set up nearby. “What would I have to do?”

“Sleep together,” Myungjun says. “Bin shares an intimate bond with his sacrifice; they’re connected through the heart. But a joining of bodies can simulate that connection, if only in the short term.”

“Fornication does seem to be a favorite pastime of the gods,” Dongmin says. He is not immediately against the idea, though he wonders if Bin would even accept him for it. He considers himself fairly good-looking (if the frequent looks he gets are any indication), but his looks are for nothing if Bin isn’t attracted to him. Then again, he thinks, Bin’s gaze does seem to linger overlong.

“He’d go for it,” Myungjun says. “His favorite sacrifices have always been men. And you’re Sumi’s son.”

“Wouldn’t that make him more likely to think of me as a grandchild?” Dongmin asks. He wrinkles his nose. In many ways Bin seems younger than him; it feels strange to acknowledge him as the ancient being he is.

“Nah.” Myungjun waves his hand. “She promised him a bride. And you don’t really… _look_ like Sumi, to be honest. Maybe a bit around the eyes, but whoever your father was, he was a real looker. She had good taste.” He sounds proud.

“So I’d just have to convince him,” Dongmin says. He scratches at his jaw, his mouth quirked in a wry smile. “This is ridiculous,” he says. He considers himself a rational man, but there is nothing rational in what he is planning—and there is certainly nothing _normal_ in how unconcerned he is with what Myungjun has suggested.

When Myungjun makes a questioning sound, he amends, “I feel like I should be more, I don’t know—nervous?—about sleeping with a god.”

“Feeling a bit sacrilegious?” Myungjun asks with a smirk.

“A touch,” Dongmin says.

“Just enjoy it,” Myungjun counsels. “You humans get too easily wrapped up in the finer details. Just don’t think. And don’t worry; Bin would never hurt you. You’re Sumi’s kid, after all.”

Dongmin keeps this in mind when he confronts Bin. He knows Bin can get mad, but he has never seen that anger directed at him. Bin treats him as delicately as china, which is why Dongmin isn’t surprised when Bin initially resists his suggestion.

“No, we don’t have to,” Bin says, as tranquil as an undisturbed lake. “I don’t want to force you, Dongmin.”

“So instead you’ll fade away?” Dongmin asks.

Bin smiles back at him. “We all have our season,” he says, his voice running over Dongmin like a stream.

“So you’re just going to die?” Dongmin asks. “My mother promised to give you a bride, and I’m _here_. Isn’t that worth staying alive for?”

Bin’s expression does not falter, though something like melancholy tinges his eyes. “But you don’t want to be,” he says. “And I would not force you to love me.”

“You’d let your death be on my hands, just because I refuse to give up my life to live with you?” Dongmin’s voice is choked with bitterness. The fire that had died off so long ago is starting to spark to life, kindled by how _frustrating_ Bin is.

He had thought Bin a patient man, but now he wonders if Bin was always ready to die. It would explain his gentle acceptance of Dongmin’s fury, his unintrusive presence around the house, and how he showed no interest outside of cooking and cleaning and caring for Dongmin.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Bin says.

Dongmin cannot help himself. He pushes forward into Bin’s space, and says, “Why don’t you try and _make_ me love you? Instead of just dying, why don’t you try to _live_!?” And then, because Bin still refuses to react, he says, “You’re refusing the last gift my mother ever gave you!”

Dongmin has always thought himself a strong man—but his strength is nothing against a god. Bin catches him by the shoulder and pushes him against the wall, his eyes flaring that gleaming gold that Dongmin first saw on a storm-ravaged night. He breathes hard, his teeth bared, the fangs distinctly pointed.

“You’d sleep with a god so fearlessly?” Bin asks, and his voice is the growl of thunder and the surge of waves.

Bravado paints over Dongmin’s fear, and he works his mouth into a smile that reflects more as a snarl in the gold of Bin’s eyes. “Yes,” he answers. “Humanity’s depravity knows no end.” He is reminded of every story he has ever read. Of women who would lay with bulls, of men who would coil with snakes. And when one steps into mythology, there is only a desperate desire to sample all that is esoteric and exotic. “I’ll turn the entire experience into a book.”

“You would desecrate so sacred an act,” Bin murmurs.

“Welcome to capitalism,” Dongmin answers.

It is the last thing he says on the subject, for then Bin’s mouth covers his own, a hissed command to _stop talking_ slipping out through fangs that run sharp as needles.

Theirs is not a gentle kiss. It cannot be, Dongmin thinks, for they are both men used to taking command, taking control. It is Dongmin who first asserts himself, driving his tongue past the seam of Bin’s lips even as he crushes Bin’s hips against his. Bin’s mouth is wet and warm, and Dongmin growls out his approval.

It is clear the dragon is not used to active partners, for his grip on Dongmin’s shoulder weakens, and Dongmin takes advantage to switch their positions. He shoves Bin (and he is not gentle) against the wall and pins him there, hands firm on Bin’s hips, holding them in place as he grinds forward. They both groan at the contact, and Bin’s eyelashes flutter against Dongmin’s cheek as he breaks the kiss to lean his head back, panting.

“You weren’t kidding,” Bin croaks out, his voice already gone hoarse in its desire. Bin’s dick is heavy and insistent in the confines of his clothes, and Dongmin wonders just how long it’s been since Bin last had sex.

(He also wonders, his dick twitching at the thought, just how large Bin is that he can be felt so easily through layers of fabric.)

“It’s also a kink,” Dongmin answers. His hands run under the _baeja_ , eager to divest Bin of his clothes. He thinks traditional hanbok beautiful, but he has never been so patient as to appreciate the slow divesting of layers. He wants instant gratification. “Monster-fucking.”

Bin’s nose wrinkles at that, a few small huffs of laughter slipping from his mouth. His hands come up to cover Dongmin’s own, and he helps Dongmin draw open the _baeja_ , shrugging out of it with practiced ease. The _jeogori_ is left alone, as are the _baji_. The innermost robe and matching pants can be removed in the bedroom, Dongmin thinks.

“Am I a monster?” Bin asks, unoffended.

“You turn into a dragon,” Dongmin says. Impatient, he drags Bin back into a kiss and is surprised when the god turns playful; Bin nips at Dongmin’s lip, one hand coming down to curl around Dongmin and grip his ass, pushing him forward so that Dongmin’s half-hard cock can press against Bin’s fully erect one. Even through clothes, the friction is good enough that Dongmin moans, rutting his hips forward only to growl in frustration when Bin draws his own pelvis back.

“Bedroom,” Bin tells him.

Dongmin thinks they’ll walk to it, clutching and groping at each other the whole way. He does not expect for Bin’s hand on his ass to instead loop around him, lifting him up and encouraging Dongmin to wrap his thighs around Bin’s waist. He’s further surprised that Bin can even lift him, because Dongmin is _heavy_. But the dragon does it easily. Dongmin rests his hands on Bin’s shoulders and rains down kisses upon Bin’s face as he heads to the bedroom.

Bin throws Dongmin down on the mattress and drags his pants off faster than Dongmin can get his shirt off. He doesn’t remove his own clothes, more interested in crawling over Dongmin, a half-smirk on his face as he looks down at Dongmin.

“Shall we see just how much of a monster lover you are?” he asks. His tongue slips from between his lips: long and thin, more serpent than human. Dongmin’s underwear is suddenly _very_ tight.

“I’m in Heaven,” he says bluntly, earning another chuckle from Bin that hisses at the end.

Bin shares a chaste kiss with Dongmin, his mouth kept firmly closed, before starting his way down Dongmin’s naked chest. He lets his tongue slip out just a bit to tickle at Dongmin’s abs, the feeling cool and feathery and so unlike a human tongue that Dongmin shivers from the contact, his cock twitching.

Then Bin moves lower, one hand (the nails clawed, scraping gently over Dongmin’s skin) dragging down his boxers until Dongmin’s dick is exposed for the world to see: hard and ready, precum already beading up at the slit.

Bin stares at Dongmin’s dick hungrily, serpentine tongue peeking out from between his lips. Dongmin thinks he’s going to be swallowed whole, but Bin takes his time. He starts with kisses to the head, smearing his lips with the precum, tongue dipping out to swipe across the slit and sample the taste. His breath comes out in warm gusts across the sensitive skin, and Dongmin finds himself closing his eyes and tilting his head back. With his eyes closed, each touch of Bin’s tongue is heightened.

Unbidden, Dongmin’s hand goes down to nestle in Bin’s hair, fingers carding through his hair in silent encouragement. The dragon purrs, lips pressed to the shaft, and opens his mouth wide. He takes the head into his mouth, its velvet, slippery warmth making Dongmin moan.

The moan comes again, louder, more guttural, when Bin makes a soft sound of mischief and suddenly his tongue is curling down Dongmin’s dick, starting from the head and spiraling down, looping around it much like a snake coils around its prey. Bin’s mouth follows, taking Dongmin almost to the base. Dongmin has to fight against the urge to rut up into Bin’s mouth, the hand in Bin’s hair closing into a tight-fisted grip.

Bin takes the hint and takes him _all the way_ , Dongmin’s dick hitting the back of his throat as the dragon briefly chokes himself on Dongmin’s dick, his tongue curling tighter around the shaft before loosening and retracting. Bin moves to lift his head, and Dongmin reluctantly lets him, a shudder rolling through him as Bin pulls his mouth off Dongmin’s dick.

“Wanted to choke me?” Bin asks, sounding amused. His breath runs cool over the saliva-slickened head, and Dongmin makes a soft, needy sound.

“No,” he gets out, one eye opened to judge Bin’s appearance. The dragon doesn’t _look_ mad. In fact, he seems pleased.

Bin hums and runs one hand down the underside of Dongmin’s thigh, clawed hands pricking gently at the delicate flesh. He presses a kiss to the head of Dongmin’s cock and murmurs, his mouth pressed against the skin, “Do you want to feel something even better?”

In a daze, Dongmin nods his head dumbly. Most of his sense has left, leaving all his thoughts and feelings concentrated on the events unfolding between his legs. He only swallows, pulse racing, as Bin lifts him up, hooking one of Dongmin’s legs over the swell of his shoulder and raising Dongmin half-off the mattress.

Dongmin closes his eyes once more and draws in a trembling breath, anticipation curling his toes.

When Bin’s tongue slides between his thighs, beneath his cock, curling up underneath his ballsack, Dongmin knows what’s coming. The long, thin tongue brushes experimentally against his asshole, making Dongmin’s core briefly tighten before he forces out a calming breath. He swallows, his mouth gone dry, and finds himself panting as Bin’s tongue flicks against the tightened ring of muscle.

The hand that isn’t hoisting up Dongmin’s leg draws gentle circles on the opposite thigh, quiet encouragement for Dongmin to relax.

Dongmin breathes out another trembling sigh, and Bin’s tongue presses inside.

Dongmin can only moan: quiet, short little sounds of constrained pleasure, his brow knitted and his eyes scrunched tight as he struggles to stay still and steady and let Bin explore his insides. The tongue feels unlike anything else: cool and slippery and _so long_ , pushing further, exploring deeper, than any other tongue he’s felt. It strokes at his overheated insides, making his dick physically ache.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing until he feels the wet, warm slick of his own cum on his hand. He’s wrapped his cock in a trembling fist, timing his pumps with each stroke of Bin’s tongue along his insides. But no matter how much he strokes himself, the starburst of an orgasm never comes. Instead, his cock leaks cum in a slow, steady stream that matches Bin’s tongue.

“Bin, _please_ ,” he begs, his dick so hard it hurts. His voice has gone watery, his face so flushed with heat he thinks he might pass out.

He quivers when Bin’s tongue pulls free of his ass. His lover peeks up at Dongmin from between his legs. Bin’s eyes are molten gold, and when he moves his head to press a gentle kiss to Dongmin’s thigh, his hair (grown long, flowing like a river) brushes over Dongmin’s overstimulated skin.

“Roll over,” Bin commands, and his voice is overlayed with power.

It takes Dongmin a moment to remember how to move, and by the time he’s rolled over onto his stomach, Bin has divested himself of his remaining clothes.

He looms over Dongmin once more, hands positioning Dongmin until he’s got his ass raised in the air, his face pressed against the mattress beneath them. Clawed fingers close around the nape of Dongmin’s neck, holding him down, and molten rock oozes through his veins.

“You wanted this,” Bin reminds him, mistaking his tremors for fear. The points of his talons dig into the pulse that hammers in Dongmin’s throat, collaring him.

“I do,” Dongmin gets out, voice gone breathless. He’s almost afraid Bin hasn’t heard him, is gathering his strength to say it again, louder, when Bin whispers something against his back, lips reverent upon his skin.

And then Bin presses his cock to Dongmin’s ass and pushes in. Dongmin groans, hands curling into claws that clutch desperately at the mattress beneath him. He can feel Bin hovering over him, his chest aligned with Dongmin’s back, and when Bin pauses with only the head pushed inside, Dongmin thinks it a moment of mercy: Bin, providing him time to adjust.

Instead, a yell is torn from him (ragged and edged with surprise, not pain) as Bin’s teeth sink into the meat of his shoulder, the hand upon his neck keeping him still even when he attempts to thrash. It is the sudden stab of needles, but when Bin withdraws his mouth and licks at the spot, warmth blooms from the point of contact.

Dongmin finds himself rapidly relaxing, even the hand clamped vice-like around his throat pleasant.

“There you go,” Bin murmurs, and just the ghost of his breath across Dongmin’s skin is enough to make him moan. Bin draws his hips back, pulling the tip out of Dongmin’s ass, and just the sensation is enough to make Dongmin’s hips buck.

He doesn’t know what Bin did to him, but he is entirely too warm now, a fine sheen of sweat covering his skin as he pants wantonly. Every part of him is on fire, desperate for some kind of human contact, and when Bin’s dick rubs against his asshole once more, Dongmin tries to push back against him, tries to draw Bin _into_ him, because he needs to be fucked raw, he needs to be satiated.

He almost cries with relief when Bin does finally sink into him. Bin’s hand slides from his neck, between his shoulder blades, down his back, stopping to rest on the curve of Dongmin’s hip. He helps Dongmin rock back into him, letting Dongmin slowly impale himself on Bin’s cock.

He can feel Bin is rigid behind him, every line of him screaming restraint and patience. But he stays still, holding onto Dongmin’s waist so that he cannot furiously jackhammer himself back against Bin.

“You fucking asshole,” Dongmin bites out, voice tight. “Fucking _move_.”

Bin grunts and says, “I’m trying to be polite.”

But he holds Dongmin’s hips firmly in place and draws his hips back before rolling them forward. It’s a shallow thrust, a testing of the waters.

 _Part me like the Red fucking Sea,_ Dongmin thinks, near-delirious. His mouth opens in a full-throated moan when Bin thrusts again, his speed faster, his pace smoother.

“Just like that,” he says, desperate to keep Bin going. He wants it faster, he wants it deeper, he wants it harder – but just getting to this point has been torturous, and he’ll gladly take this and the way it makes his nerves sing with pleasure.

He coaxes Bin with breathy moans, the tightening of his sphincter muscles around Bin’s cock. He knows he’s being unfair, he knows that Bin is only trying to treat him kindly (even now, he thinks irritably), but if he’s going to fuck a monster then he wants it to _feel_ that way.

He knows Bin is at the end of his rope when the dragon drags Dongmin’s ass back against him, bottoming out inside him with a hard smack. He begs, “Fuck me harder!” and hears the quiet hiss of Bin’s restraint buckling.

It’s hard to remember what happens afterward, because for most of it, Dongmin is trapped in a delicious dream of pleasure intermixed with the smallest edge of pain. He knows Bin growls out, “Fuck,” and then there is light all around him, threads of gossamer that wrap around his body like ribbon, stroking over his peaked nipples and coaxing yet more fluid from his weeping cock.

Bin’s claws leave imprints on Dongmin’s hips. He holds them tightly, painfully, keeping Dongmin steady even as his thrusts increase in power and intensity. His hips slam forward with all the strength of a wild animal, and Dongmin finds himself gasping with each heavy hit his body takes. Scales brush against his ass each time Bin brings their bodies together.

Bin is held in his human form only by sheer force of will, and it is only when Dongmin keens, ropes of cum wrung from his cock, his orgasm finally forced upon him like the explosion of a galaxy born, that he allows himself to come.

His seed spurts thick and molten inside of Dongmin, so hot and dense that Dongmin nearly cums again just from the sensation of it. Bin’s hips stutter to a stop, his ragged breathing unbelievably loud in the silence left behind.

Their copulation comes to an abrupt end as Bin leashes his power, stitching his humanoid form back together. He helps Dongmin ease down fully upon the bed, his hands no longer clawed, fingers soft, as he rubs gentle circles into Dongmin’s sweat-soaked back and presses fluttery kisses to Dongmin’s shoulder.

Dongmin’s neck and hips ache, and he knows his ass will be similarly wrecked once Bin’s weird aphrodisiac wears off. But he doesn’t care, only glad to be satiated, the fire that had raged in his belly at last extinguished. He shudders, still sensitive, when he feels Bin’s semen leak down his thigh.

He must sleep at some point, for Dongmin eventually re-awakens to a body that is stiff and sore—but surprisingly clean. Bin dozes beside him, and when Dongmin turns his head to regard the dragon, Bin slits his eyes open. They are once more dark and deep, as quiet as a winter lake.

The dragon offers Dongmin a shy smile, and Dongmin finds himself reluctantly smiling back.

“You need to do that again,” he tells Bin. “I didn’t get my full monster fucking.”

Bin’s nose wrinkles and his eyes crinkle in obvious distaste. “My dragon form won’t fit on the bed,” he points out.

“Mmm,” Dongmin hums. He nuzzles into the pillow beneath him, his thoughts still tinged with fatigue. “Then we’ll do it outside.”

“I would have thought I was monster enough,” Bin huffs. “I had claws and my tongue. I think I was sprouting scales toward the end.”

“If I can look at you and know immediately how to fuck you, it’s not _really_ monster fucking,” Dongmin tells him.

“I think I’m too big for you as a dragon,” Bin tells him bluntly.

Dongmin just laughs. “You underestimate the ingenuity of humans,” he tells Bin. And then, more seriously, “Do you feel better?”

Bin’s smiles. He raises his hand up for Dongmin to inspect. It is reassuringly solid. “Much better,” he says.

Dongmin can see the question framed in his eyes: _Will Dongmin become his sacrifice now? His bride?_ It’s a question that he still cannot answer, not truthfully. It is one thing to have sex with a god; it is something else entirely to dedicate the better part of your life to it.

But they now have time. Bin is no longer in immediate danger of fading out of existence. Dongmin can come back to visit him, and perhaps, one day, he will become the bride his mother promised Bin so long ago.

_Sex definitely goes on the Pro list, but…_

“Ah,” he sighs out. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get out of bed for a while. You’re going to have to wait on me.”

Bin laughs. “What a strange reversal,” he says. “Normally the human waits upon the god.” He leans over and gently presses a kiss to Dongmin’s lips. “But I will do it for you,” he says.

“Thank you,” Dongmin says. He offers Bin a wide smile and is rewarded with another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! (I might come back and edit this with a real comment later but I'm tired LMAO)


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